My wakeup call had the desired effect-more than two dozen people weighed in on Super Bowl ads and antics. Most of you commented on the half-time show shenanigans and the lackluster crop of ads. And a fairly typical comment: "The most underwhelming, least creative set of Super Bowl ads in memory."

No one has anything to say about the lackluster-ish Super Bowl ads? Or the titilating Super Bowl half-time antics? Hellooooooo. Speak to me.

So, what'd you think of this year's crop of Super Bowl ads? So far, polling by America Online and USA Today shows Budweiser in the lead. Between the Clydesdales, a donkey aspiring to be a Clydesdale, bears, monkeys, and other creatures, last night was more like the animal fair ad bowl.

A contact recently invited me to join her network on LinkedIn, a professional networking site. Like Tribe, Ryze, Friendster, and a host of other networking sites, LinkedIn members invite people to join their network and what starts out as a small group, grows fairly quickly into something larger and potentially more valuable with each addition.

So, I'm wondering whether Howard Dean's blood-curdling primal scream in Iowa last week might be construed as a new form of media.

Media behemoth Time Warner reported earnings today and while the company's cable and film divisions reported a fourth-quarter profit, its online unit posted a seven percent decline in fourth quarter revenue. Time Warner's quarterly revenue increased six percent to $10.9 billion in all sectors except for America Online.

When an online bellwether like New York Times Digital appears to be going strong, it must say something about the improving health of the entire industry. A rising tide lifts all ships, right?

Last week's settlement between Playboy and AOL over trademark infringements in keyword advertising doesn't mean the issue is dead.

Maybe it was the bone-chilling cold and the open bar. The hip venue didn't hurt either. But whatever it was that drove more than 500 New York-area interactive media professionals to 212's launch party last night, there was no denying a palpable and pervasive energy.

Question du jour: Who's minding the [ad sales] store at AOL? After only a year in the company's top ad sales job, Lisa Brown, AOL's exec-VP of Interactive Marketing, left earlier this month. Brown, appointed by AOL-CEO Jon Miller for whom she worked at InterActive Corp., issued a string of mea culpas last year for AOL's shoddy relations with marketers and agencies. She pledged to improve relations and build a world-class sales organization. She said all the right things.